Public Private Partnership to promote healthcare in India

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad today said that we need to look at Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode as a synergetic arrangement which ensures that the private sector also contributes to public health goals.

Inaugurating the 7th India Health Summit 2010 here, Azad said: "Public Private Partnership can be a vital instrument for improving the health of the population but partnership is not meant to be substitution for lesser provisioning of Government resources nor abdication of Government responsibility but as a tool for augmenting the public health system.

"A fine balance has to be worked out between profitability and corporate responsibility,' he added.

He further said that over the last five years Govt. of India has invested nearly Rs. 45,000 crore to meet the healthcare infrastructure right from sub-centre to district hospitals.

Stating that a larger effort will be required in the 12th Plan period to achieve the goal of taking the total allocation for the health sector to 2-3 per cent of GDP, Azad said: " "For the Govternment in the context of the health sector, profit would mean efficient, affordable and accountable services to the people".

Stressing upon the fact that healthcare, to be sustainable, has to be affordable, Azad disclosed that the Health Ministry has tied up with the Ministry of Railways for providing land owned by them.

He said the strategy under the proposed National Urban Health Mission is to arrange for the secondary and tertiary care medical needs of urban people through a system of health insurance.

"The common theme in all the projects has to be quality and affordability," he emphasized.

He further mentioned that the Government is reviewing the existing regulatory system for clinical establishment and medical education.

He also said that a Bill for setting up a National Council for Human Resources in Health is ready to be introduced soon in Parliament so that the issue of quality, quantity and equitable distribution of medical education resources can be addressed.